Discovering reality so we can better avoid it.

July 30, 2008

The problem with the idea of "human resources" is that people are not resources. People have resources. They have tools, skills, and solutions. But having is not being. Having a skill, a profession, or even an identity isn't being those things. Because you can't have "who you are." You can only be it. Just like everyone else.

July 26, 2008

Take a lifetime of learning, mentorship, and creating, and squeeze it into an hour. This is wisdom concentrate. Pausch's concept of the "head fake" is profound - when you think you're achieving one goal, but in the process actually gaining much more in wisdom and experience than "success" could ever offer. We seem to always have a reason for what we do. But the true value of what we do is not the accomplishment of the thing, but how we change and grow because of the journey.

"Brick walls are there for a reason. They're there to keep out everyone who doesn't want it badly enough."

"When you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up."

"Your critics are the ones saying they still love you and care."

"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."

"Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you. When you're pissed off at somebody and annoyed or angry with them, you just haven't given them enough time."

"There's a good way and a bad way to say I don't know."

"Get a feedback loop; and LISTEN to it!"

"The best gift an educator can give is to get someone to become self-reflective."

June 11, 2007

June 09, 2007

The movie Next had some fascinating ideas, even if the plot was Lost in 60 Seconds. The act of predicting the future inherently changes it by knowledge of it. So how do we predict what people will think is "good?" Or how people will react so something we say or create?

One of my creative writing professors once said of character choices, "It's not conjecture. The reason must be there." People do what they do, statistically and individually, because of their priority of incentives. Malcolm Gladwell writes all about that in Tipping Point. By knowing incentives, and therefore future choices, we are able to change behavior. In Minority Report, Cruise throws a ball across a table; the detective catches it before it drops, illustrating how we actively project into the future. Stumbling on Happiness stresses the point that, even if we can't predict how we're going to feel in the future, we make choices that will affect our future as though we could. It's impossible to know how we'll feel in the future. But it's very possible to project successful outcomes (i.e. happiness) if, like Nicholas Cage in Next, we do it by trial-and-error feedback.

"No one 'pre-predicted' the astonishing success of Flickr or Google
or Twitter or Bill Clinton's first run for President. Sure, it was easy
to connect the dots after the fact, but that doesn't count.Of course, there are plenty of failures to go around (I know that
I've got more than plenty). Just because everyone hates it doesn't mean
it's good. Execution is everything. Execution and persistence and the
ability to respond to the market far outweigh a pundit's gut instinct.
But, the thing to remember is this: if everyone loves it, it is almost
certain to have troubles."

There was another quote I heard somewhere: "Perseverance beats raw talent." It seems true that improving a process or product makes it better than designing a "perfect" one to begin with. Meanwhile, Blink says that the gut instinct of someone with experience can be much more powerful than the logistics of research and development. If that includes thumbs up-or-down on a marketing solution, who has the final say? The expert, or the masses?

Those would be the "Phone a friend" or the "Ask the audience" options from Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? Assuming the show is a statistical tool, even if it has its flaws, the resulting accuracy should be an indicator of what the best source of information is.

"...More recently we see the remarkable accuracy of the audience in the
show “Who wants to be a millionaire.” The ‘ask the audience’ question
delivers a remarkable 91% accuracy versus 65% for the phone a friend
'expert'.

The secret is that under the right circumstances a crowd is smarter
than its smartest individual. The combined knowledge of the masses is a
powerful and highly accurate tool."

Video game designers have been using players' mass feedback since the first forum went online. Large agencies and consumer analysts are finally taking online feedback seriously, saving so much time and money they can probably fire most of their salaried researchers. Here's an article from AdWeek. As Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Tipping Point, it is up to the connectors and mavens to take interest in a new idea if it has any chance of spreading. Those are the people most involved, personally, with a brand, product, system, etc. It isn't up to the marketer to decide what will be good; it's up to the people who want to be involved with it.

Except that creativity doesn't happen by consensus. It takes individual creativity to be truly innovative. Mass review can only give feedback and suggestions. In the end, it's still up to a single person to come up with an inspired idea. They'd just need the help of legions of opinions and critiques to make that idea better, to the point where it matters.

May 29, 2007

Profit and social responsibility seem to be diametrically opposed in most current business settings, or at least, what happens when prices are calculated without long-term interests. Here's a cool article from Egg, an ad agency specializing in sustainability and social change:

That'd be a cool identifier on a resume for individuals or a community to start up. Seth Godin tried to get people to put a "z" at the end of their resume to say that they're "zoomers" who subscribe to the ground-up, feedback-based decision-making prescribed by Fast Company. Why can't we do the same for the idea of sustainability as a marketable, profitable endeavor?

May 23, 2007

Everyone can appreciate brevity. Take Joe Biden's response in the Democratic Presidential Debate for example:

Williams: An editorial in the Los Angeles Times said, "In addition to his uncontrolled verbosity, Biden is a gaff machine." Can you reassure voters in this country that you would have the discipline you would need on the world stage, Senator?

Nobody wants to pour over text or wait for the point. The longer it takes to say something, the less meaningful the message. That doesn't mean a book or lecture or meeting can't be long, but it should be dense with relevant information. Here's another example from Book-A-Minute:

(Gulliver visits some places.)

A Lilliputian: We're small.

A Brobdingnagian: We're big.

A Horse: We can talk.

(Gulliver goes home.)

Gulliver: Humanity sucks. I hate people.

THE END

OK, maybe literature isn't the best example, since it's as much the experience of reading as it is the story that we enjoy. But that's not the case with meetings or educational reading. Check out The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier. It's short and sweet, taking all the complexities and nuance and misconceptions about what a brand is and turns it into page after page of simple gold nuggets -- without panning the river. Thanks to Sam for telling me about it. E-mail me if you want the complimentary PDF.

May 20, 2007

"A client's hire is a difficult choice these days, but I'm willing to
bet the most unique agency almost always gets the win. Without notable
differences, clients tend to go with the safest bet: a preexisting
relationship within the agency or, quite frankly, the largest agency.
But with a true identity, small agencies can trump these factors.
Anonymity is death, and the lives of your accounts are on the line."

Comparing a small agency to an entry-level art designer or account planner doesn't seem too far-fetched. Be unique, win the job. Easy enough, right? But I'm starting to think that having a smart book simply isn't unique. There needs to be more than the perfection of content, as defined by the current standards of what people recognize and what they understand from their own experiences.

"If I'd asked my customers what they would have wanted, they would have said a faster horse."- Henry Ford

The same think big paradigm applies to agencies; to clients; to business and the world at large; to yourself. Here, try to finish the following:

Horse-drawn carriages are to ad agencies as motor cars are to _________

Answer that, then go ahead and tell me how to put it in a portfolio. I'll split the earnings with you.